Abraham Lincoln

Throughout his candidacy and presidency, Abraham Lincoln emphasized a new birth of freedom for the United States and identified slavery as a moral and political issue that threatened the nation’s survival. And though Lincoln is typically associated with his home state of Illinois, New Yorkers helped engineer Lincoln’s rise, as a newcomer on the national stage, to the top of the Republican ticket in the 1860 election. The city’s young politicians facilitated his introduction to local audiences. Its editors and image-makers successfully marketed “three Lincolns” to the American electorate—the thoughtful orator at Cooper Union, the dignified statesman of Mathew Brady’s famous New York portrait, and the frontiersman and self-made “Honest Old Abe.” The state’s 35 electoral votes ensured his victory. Though New York City was a Democratic stronghold that never gave him its vote, it nevertheless propelled him into the White House. His assassination in 1865 united New Yorkers, who turned out en masse to file by the casket lying in state at City Hall and participate in the funeral procession.